So, to side saddled in particular, i have now done somthing about it and left glorious NATS but was trying to show some loyalty to the company that trained me first!
I used to come out with sentences like that too............
In the end though, I owned up to the fact that I was kidding myself and I just wanted everything handed to me on a platter like those coming straight from the college with tower only ratings, who incedently were less experienced and had less ratings than myself.
Loyalty sounded better than telling people I was bitter and pi**ed off because I felt like I'd been shafted.
Actually, if I'm completely honest I did moan a lot and only told management types that I wanted to be loyal to the company, but that's what controllers do isn't it?
I have to admit though, I hadn't been cherry picked off my course by people from the london airports like the college kids had ........ so there's no guarentee if the new system of training was in place when I went through the college that I'd now be working in a london airport.
More likely, I'd have no ratings at all because I woudn't have done a TWR course and left without a pot to pi** in!
Besides, life isn't fair. Particularly in this job!
nnelgcta, I wish you the very best of luck in your future career and hope that if you really want to, you'll be able to re-join NATS once you are a valid controller and get the cushy job, big pay cheque and satisfaction of working at a major airport.
You never know, you may even come to be glad that the NATS thing didn't work out because the way I hear it, for those that did pass the aptitude tests, there is no guarentee of jobs.
And you may also get a little experience and see things that otherwise you'd never have come across.
Out of interest though, I thought a lot of operational controllers were against the idea of single ratings because the trainees had no idea what their collegues actually did for a living when they got to unit training?
I would also like to point out to all those who think the company they work for is being stupid and ignorant of their needs (because of all the units that are short of ATCO's when there's a perfectly good surplus of ATSA's with tower ratings), that the whole idea of employing those ATSA's with ratings was proposed to my knowledge around 18 months ago at one particular unit and the reason it has taken so long to get to this stage is because the union, of which the majority of you are a member, OPPOSED the idea!
It was actually members of NATS management who came up with the idea in the first place, and operational controllers who worked for the union that decided they didn't want the course failures to be given another go!
I suspect that the reason for the tests is a way of getting the union to accept the idea and actually give some people another crack at the whip.
Always willing to be proved wrong
Hark at me, the champion of NATS!
Not likely, but credit and slagging where it's due.
